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USAID (United States Agency for International
Development) India team consisting of Messrs. George
Deikan, Rebecca Black and A. Dasgupta visited the
Community-Led Toilet Project in Sangli on January
22, 2008. The project is
part financed with Cities Aliance grant funding.
The USAID team was accompanied by Mr. Idrish
Naikwadi, Local Municipal Councillor, members of
Financial Institutions Reform and Expansion (FIRE)
project and of the non-governmental organisation,
Shelter Associates. The Indo-USAID FIRE Project is
assisting the Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad (SMKMC) Municipal
Corporation, Maharashtra, India to implement a
citywide community-led sanitation project. The
project is implemented through a partnership among
SMKMC, Shelter Associates and Bandhani, a
community-based organization. The city had a
population of 478,500 in 2001. The project helped to
build about 600 individual toilets and three
community toilets serving over 1,200 low-income
households.
The USAID/India team first visited Kolhapur Chawl
where a community toilet was completed last month,
with separate toilet facilities for men, women and
children. In addition, there is a bio-gas plant to
dispose of the waste. George and Rebecca planted
trees near the biogas plant. The team also visited
Pandharpur and Jatkar Niwas where the project
assisted the households to build about 200
individual toilets. The team had a brief visit to
Uttam Chawl, where the project also helped about 50
households to construct individual toilets.
The USAID team also interacted with women
slumdwellers. Discussions ranged from cultural
difficulties in use of toilet, technical limitations
to the provision of individual toilets, financial
constraints, limited space, health and hygiene, etc.
In Uttamnagar Nagar the team raised the problems of
HIV and AIDS, and need to better educate women
residents. The visitors were impressed with the
support provided by Local Municipal Councillors and
the SMKMC, noting that the latter has rightly
prioritised water supply and toilet components of
the slum upgrading programmes. The team also
appreciated the role of Shelter Associates in the
project. The overall message form the USAID team to
the communities was, “Congratulations and continue
the good work”.
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